Tag: travel

I drove him back to the airport

1 June 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Penelope Scambly Schott

hoping he wouldn’t tell me, his old mother,
that I ought not to still be driving.

I didn’t turn the car key until I couldn’t see
his blue shirt through the revolving door

and then I drove the 100 miles back home
past cliffs we had just passed together.

Here is his unfinished coffee still in the cup.
I will go lie down in the guest bed

before I strip off his wrinkled sheets.
I will imagine they are still warm.

Penelope Scambly Schott’s most recent book is Waving Fly Swatters at Angels. Forthcoming is gOD: A Respectfully Divergent Testament. Penelope is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry.

Another One Gone South

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

In the great Northeast,
I’ve soaked in rain;
I’ve chilled in snow.
I’ve had enough.
It’s time to go
to the water-strained Southwest,
where it’s best
to feel the kiss
of a dry metropolis
and bake to overdone
in the sun.

Abandoning myself to thirst,
I’ll brand myself the first
among the downward strays
who seek hot, vulnerable days.

Farewell to risk
when weather’s brisk
and tax that bites like a basilisk.

Farewell to rent
that puts a dent
in budgets that were all well-meant.

Farewell to bunkers.
No one hunkers
in the land of drills and junkers.

I’ll learn how to make do with less
in my arid new address.
Among the scrub I’ll decompress.

Sunscreen’s become my safest bet
for coping with the constant threat
of chaos where the climate’s wet.

Brian C. Billings is a professor of drama and English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. His work has appeared in such journals as Ancient Paths, Antietam Review, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Glacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing. Read earlier poems from last March and December in The Bluebird Word.

French Broad River

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Douglas Cooper

The hum of traffic on the bridge overhead, blends
with the gurgle of the river as it swirls around
the dock at the kayak ramp. A man wearing a bicycle helmet
sits on the bank watching a teacup Yorkie explore.

The bank is covered with huge catalpa trees, thickets
of sunflowers, Japanese knotweed, blackberry canes,
Asiatic lilies, and sweet pea flowers, making me
a world traveler standing in one place.

My friend Mick, with a twinkle in his eye,
asks the cyclist how many CCs his
electric bike could do. The cyclist answers
straight-faced, “Up to 30 miles per hour.”
“How many miles per gallon?”
“I can ride to work and back on one charge.”

About then, the Yorkie scampers across
the sidewalk toward an 80-pound husky
straining on his owner’s leash – a tiny hurricane hunter
flying straight into the storm. The cyclist
picks up the small dog and puts him in his cloth shoulder bag,
riding to safer places to explore the wonders of this world.

Douglas Cooper lives in the mountains north of Asheville, NC, with his wife and three pets. He has a BA in English from the University of West Florida, and attended many workshops with poet Francis Quinn. His work has appeared in Crosswinds Poetry Journal and The RavensPerch.

Glancing Down at the Carnival

3 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Robert Nisbet

Leaving a small dark town, hurrying,
we pass a notice, To the Carnival,
swing homeward over a sweep of bridge,
then glance down at the show itself,
in the valley, in its meadow,
a multi-coloured load of sight and sound.

We see and hear, briefly
the motley morrice of copious ribbon
the comedy notes of oompah-oompah
a cone of helter-skelter red
maybe a hurdy-gurdy grinding

We sense . . . maybe
the sketching of likenesses
the telling of fortunes in shadowed tents
and (as in American country fairs)
a bespectacled girl sitting at a card table,
typing poems for the passing crowds . . .

Stay, stay
oompah, oompah
but our car has to race on, race on . . .

Robert Nisbet, a Welsh writer, was for several years an associate lecturer in creative writing at Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he also worked for a while as an adjunct professor for the Central College of Iowa. His poems appear in Robeson, Fitzgerald and Other Heroes (Prolebooks, 2017). Read Robert’s poem “Later” published in The Bluebird Word‘s January 2023 issue.

Gypsies

25 March 2023 / Editor

Poetry by David Sapp

The tour book
My vade mecum
In prudence or prejudice
Warned of nimble
Pickpocketing gypsies
Roman Romani
For the entire trip
In heightened vigilance
I was prepared to dispatch
As so instructed
“Hit the road!”
In perfect Italian
After the Caravaggios
At Santa Maria del Popolo
Paul’s conversion
Peter’s crucifixion
Their world their view
Turned upside-down
In aesthetic inebriation
We sat put our backs
Against the chiesa wall
An Egyptian obelisk
An arched Roman gate
History looming
Heavily in the piazza
Gelato on our minds
And there approaching
Finally! the unkempt woman
Her intent quite clear
And my opportunity:
“Vada via!”
Immediately I apprehended
My impertinence
As her expression was more
Disappointment than anger
As if: “you seemed like
A nice young man your
Rudeness unnecessary”
Rome was her city
Rome was her suffering
Her Via Dolorosa

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Meeting

25 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by David Goad

There was a time
I took the train to see you in the outskirts of the city,
And from the gray
Disjointed sprawl of life,
You formed somewhere just beyond the line –
Past black and white
Nooks and crannies
Framed in trash along the tracks –
In the world’s singular course,
there comes the hammers, the ties,
The earth piercing nails
Laid by dead hands of men
Whose sweat formed the communion
Of your light
As you waited
Under the crooked streetlamp.

David Goad is an attorney who currently lives in Washington DC. He resides with his lovely partner and little puppy, Pennie. When not working, David enjoys writing poetry that touches on the nature of memory and the human experience in the modern world.